The Smart Dog Blog

You may have heard that dogs "lip lick" or "tongue flick" when they are stressed. A recent study by Albuquerque et al. (2018) used lip licking in dogs to assess their ability to respond to emotional cues in humans and dogs. Previous … [Read more...]

Usually, I try to focus my blog posts on applied research. But a study came out recently that has gotten enough press that some of my clients have asked me about it, so I decided to focus on that study for this post. I hope it will help … [Read more...]

"He pees in the house every time we leave. I know why he's doing it. He's angry with us and wants to punish us for leaving him alone. I know he knows it's wrong too, because he looks guilty when we come home."
(Looking for Finn? Don't … [Read more...]

(I am taking a break this month from talking about getting a new dog. Instead, I’m going to use this time to talk about my personal journey with my dog, Darwin, in the hopes that it will be beneficial to others as well.)
I’ve been … [Read more...]

It's been awhile since I posted Episode 1 in this series. I thought this time I'd focus on interactions between dogs and kids.
Test Yourself
Rate the scenarios below as red light (need to intervene right away), yellow light (might be … [Read more...]

My dog, Darwin, is one of the most laid back dogs I’ve ever known. With the exception of tracking (he is mostly beagle), he doesn’t generally get excited about anything. That includes food, toys and people or other dogs. He appears to … [Read more...]

Have you ever considered using an electronic collar (aka e-collar or shock collar) to train your dog? Perhaps you advocate against their use or feel they can be helpful in certain situations. The use of e-collars (one form of positive … [Read more...]

Would you like to improve your understanding of your dogs' behavior? What about the behavior of your family, friends and co-workers? If you really want to understand behavior (and training) then it is absolutely critical that you … [Read more...]

If you’re like me, you drink up as much quality programming on dog behavior as you can find. I recently learned of a new show in the UK called “Dogs: Their Secret Lives”. The show is hosted by Mark Evans who used to be the chief … [Read more...]

What does it take to make your dog happy? For one thing, lots of free treats, right? Maybe not. A recent study by Swedish researchers looked at how dogs react to getting “free”, unpredictable rewards versus working to earn predictable … [Read more...]

About the Smart Dog Blog

The Smart Dog blog provides practical science-based information on dog training and behavior in addition to personal, heartfelt stories about loving and living with dogs. For a more detailed summary, take a look at the first blog post here.

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